Idlebrain.com
is frequently visited by all the Telugu film industry celebrities,
who are net savvy. Here is a platform for the fans to express their
sincere suggestions to their stars. Write open letters to your stars
and we make sure that they are read by your favorite hero. But make
sure that all the letters are positive-minded! You can send your open
letters to [email protected]

14th
October 2005

Reviving
Telugu Film Industry - Ten easy steps

This
year has been undoubtedly one of the worst years in the industry
for some time. I am partly happy that this will atleast knock
some sense into the Telugu filmmakers and also unhappy that
the forthcoming movie announcements of the top actors seem
to more of the same nonsense we have been getting. There are
some drastic measures needed for the industry to come back
to its glory days. Ten steps which i envisage in this direction
are as follows:

1. Have
only Telugu heroines or even other language heroines who
can speak Telugu without dubbing. This is an absolute must.
The past few years have seen an increase in the number of
artistes without voices, whether villains or heroines. The
reason for this is partly explained in point 2. Another
reason is that our aging heroes have a need to indicate
their undying vigor through fresh heroines leading to a
constant churn in actresses.

2. Stop
making hero elevation movies - a la Rajamouli and VV Vinayak
movies. The problem is that once you have elevated the hero
in a movie to great heights, it would be difficult for him
and the audience to digest him taking the elevator back
down to play a normal character later on. Actors like Nagarjuna,
Venkatesh, Chiru etc. never had such "hero elevation"
movies in their earlier days. Even Shiva for all its glory
is not a hero elevation movie. Hero elevation has had many
perverse influences - mainly on actresses and villains.
Because of this need for hero elevation, the directors want
to use other language heroines indicating that even a North
Indian girl can fall our hero again elevating the hero's
image. If you have, say, someone like Jayaprada nowadays
you can't build the hero's image. But you have a "not
a patch on Jayaprada/ Sridevi's looks" girl like Shriya,
Charmi, etc. you can blow up the character just because
they are North Indians. This shows a deep lack of self-respect
and inferiority. Same is the case with villains and say
actors like Mukesh Rishi who can't get a half-decent Hindi
movie.

3. Stop
using singers like Udit Narayan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya
Goshal etc. who can't pronounce the language. It started
off as an experiment and let it be that way. It can't be
the norm.

4. Be
honest in appraising ourselves. Honesty in facing the facts
would only lead to solutions. Do not fool ourselves by jokers
shown on film news on TV, none of whom is shown claiming
that a movie is bad. Only when we stop such hypocrisy on
the media front would there be an early chance for improvement.

5. Our
music desperately needs improvement. Our last real musical
hits were only probably when R.P Patnaik was around until
he started using himself as a singer too much. Music Directors
like Mani Sharma again are good only for your hero elevation
mass music. Tamil film industry has had good MD's come out
even after Rehman like Harris Jeyraj, Vidyasagar, Yuvan
Shankar etc. Keeravani gives amazing music for Hindi movies
like Sur but his music in Telugu is like that for Chatrapati
- pointless. Vidyasagar was not patronized by us and he
has become one of the top MDs in Tamil. Devi Sri was good
for movies like Varsham till the system got to him. Music
drives audiences to the theatres. We need some desperate
renovation there.

6. Give
popular awards to movies like Anand, A Film By Arvind, Aa
Naluguru, Grahanam etc. Only then would sense creep into
fans and actors about their true standing. This year's Nandi
awards were a step in the right direction.

7. Top
heroes need to act in more movies. When top Hindi heroes
like Shahrukh can act in around 2-3 movies a year, why do
our heroes act in only 1 a year. Again our actors are under
the misapprehension that acting in more movies would dilute
their image and their brand value.

8. Encourage
innovate stories and story telling. Which was the last top
hero movie with a really different storyline (exclude remakes
here). You are left scratching your heads. There are lots
of nice stories out there waiting to be told. You just have
to dig deep.

9. Our
heroes need to be more versatile. In all his movies so far
Mahesh Babu, Pawan Kalyan etc. have portrayed similar kind
of role. While in Tamil for instance take someone like Surya
who in is last few movies has changed his role and appearance
in every movie of his - Kakha Kakha, Pithamagan, Peralagan,
Mayavi, Ghajini etc. At just 30, Surya has had already had
such a great body of work. Of course Surya is a more complete
actor than the aforementioned. That is a different debate
however. Once you have actors change their appearances and
roles regularly that takes care of the earlier issue about
brand dilution because every time you are a different character.
It is a pity we are just sinking into the morass. After
Athadu, we have had Mahesh Babu make statements that he
will stop doing experiments from here on. What a pity.

10.
Reduce budgets. Spend more on stories and screenplays, not
on sets and foreign locations for songs. You did not need
that temple set for Arjun. That was Rs3 crore straight addition
to the bottomline. Understand what is important to the movie.

So
there we go. Ten easy steps, but 12 months down the line I
bet we will be back discussing the same issues.